


An Ache That Doesn't Go Away

by rebelmeg



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Dummy - Freeform, F/M, Happy Hogan is a Good Bro, Hurt Tony, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Little bit of the bots in this fic, Pepper loves Tony so very much, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rhodey is the best bro, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, This is not a Bucky-hate fic, This is not a Steve-hate fic, Tony Recovering, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony in dire peril, Vision is worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12687750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: This fic picks up immediately after the scene cuts in Siberia, with Steve and Bucky walking away and Tony lying on the cement.  In the time between the end scenes of Civil War, and before Homecoming picks up, this is what happens to Tony, from his and a few others' POVs, as he tries to heal emotionally and physically from the events in Civil War.





	An Ache That Doesn't Go Away

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was nearly as angsty as my last fic, and that fic was nearly terminal... I put it in the tags, but let me say again, this is not a Steve or Bucky hate fic. I dearly love all of those sad, damaged babies and I think everyone involved made bad decisions, even while having good intentions.
> 
> As for the suicide tags, Tony doesn't actively try to kill himself. But he definitely puts himself in a position that he knows will kill him, and he does so willingly. So be careful of that if it's a sensitive topic.
> 
> I know there are some plot holes that I had to skate over, I did the best I could. A lot of them were due to poetic license or just unknown factors like, can Vision fly overseas himself, or does he need a jet? For the purposes of this story, I decided that yes, he can fly himself overseas sans jet, and I had Steve and Bucky leave in their quinjet, and T'Challa leave in his with Zemo, so there isn't one just hanging around for Tony to use once his suit is trashed. And really, given the damage Tony had to have sustained after all that, there was no way for me to have him taking Peter home in New York like two days later without some serious help, hence the Cradle. I also think these events were the catalyst in both readjusting Tony's way of handling his problems (holla for therapy!) and bringing him and Pepper back together as they were in Homecoming. You don't go through something like Civil War without priorities getting readjusted all over the place.
> 
> And the bit with Dummy. I found this amazing, perfect piece of art on DeviantArt, I think, forever ago, and I have been waiting to write it ever since. This fic finally had a place for it, so I tracked down the artist, and here's where you can see it. http://reducto1art.tumblr.com/post/75798864669/reducto1-tony-and-his-only-friend-dummy It's painful and beautiful and go see it and give it love.
> 
> I despise having typos and grammatical errors in my work, so if you spot one, or a sentence that is confusing or just doesn't flow, please let me know! I also love questions and comments (I FREAK THE HECK OUT WITH HAPPINESS every time I get a comment), so throw them my way! I'm also on tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rebelmeg, and seriously... I love talking to people about stuff, fandoms or headcanons or fics or writing or just nothing.

Tony listened to the heavy footsteps of two super soldiers as they walked away, leaning over to spit blood on the freezing concrete. The shield, with long deadly claw marks marring the iconic paint job, seemed to mock him as he lay there. He shifted to his knees, briefly entertaining the idea of getting up as he watched the two figures lean on each other as they left, but ended up just settling back again. And from there… just lying down, his head held at an awkward angle, not quite able to rest comfortably with the bulk of the suit under his neck.

He was… so tired. And gads, he hurt. He’d been in three huge, physical confrontations in the last couple days, and there was not a single inch of his body that did not ache, burn, sting, or throb, especially his chest. He never had the possibility of recovering completely after the arc reactor was removed, not after that much damage, and getting punched in the chest yesterday by a bionic metal arm followed up with… everything that had just happened? So not helpful in the healing process. He could feel blood trickling from the multiple scrapes and cuts on his face, going cold fast in the frigid air. He honestly couldn’t tell what else was a fresh injury, or what was just screaming from before. His left arm was numb again.

He stared at the white and gray sky he could see over his head past the edge of the bunker’s wall, and a few snowflakes drifted over his face as his body rapidly cooled down from the heat of exertion and insulation inside the suit. With the whole armor operational and in place, it held heat well for being entirely made of metal. Without the helmet, though, and a destroyed arc reactor, it went cold fast.

Lying there, immobile, Tony just listened to the faint sounds of Steve and Barnes making their way to whatever jet they had used to get here, and after several minutes, heard the sound of an aircraft taking off. And then... another one.

_Shit_. All of that, everything that had just happened, and Zemo escaped anyway. _Damn it._

And still, he lie there.

A small sound got his attention, a click and a beep, and he recognized it as coming from his helmet. He was surprised it was still working. 

“Friday?”

“I’m here, boss.” The AI replied, and Tony closed his eyes. He’d been sure the helmet had been destroyed beyond any functionality.

“What is that?” 

“I sent out an alert, boss. So Vision knows your location.”

He kept his eyes closed, and a surge of anger rose up within him. But it faded faster than it came, he was just too tired, and it drained right out of him. “Why?” He ignored how broken and hoarse his voice sounded.

Friday’s voice was softer when she replied, “You used Jarvis to program me, boss. And I learned.”

Tony heard what the AI wasn’t saying.

Jarvis would have taken any and all measures to keep him alive. No matter what it took. But then, maybe with Jarvis in his ear earlier, maybe he wouldn’t have ended up in the position he was now. Jarvis’d had ways of talking him down.

Another flash of pain, the emotional kind this time, lanced through him. But it was like a drop in the bucket. And in that instant, Tony knew he was… just… done.

“Turn it off.”

There was silence, no reply from the AI.

“Friday, turn it off.” Tony’s voice was slightly stronger and louder, a determination behind him now. “No more alerts. No GPS. No nothing. Turn it off, then shut down.”

There was a pause, but it was a listening pause, and Tony waited. 

Finally… “Yes, boss.” There was a faint mechanical whir, then silence.

It was probably useless. Vision probably already had a lock on whatever information Friday had sent. But maybe Tony would get lucky and he’d die of hypothermia before the… guy, being, whatever, could get here. This wasn’t going to be Tony’s first brush with death. It wouldn’t even be the first brush of death he actually wanted.

He had so many demons, and they were so much stronger than he was. Maybe this time he’d let them win. Lord knew they’d been trying for years, and he had it coming anyway.

He was already shivering, his body knocking painfully into the unyielding hardness of the useless metal suit. It would take maybe an hour for his body to reach the point of no return with the current near zero temperature, and it would take Vision at least twice that to get here, even if he took a quinjet to its max Mach 4 speed.

One could only hope…

\------------------------------

“It’s alright, sir. I’m here. I’ll get you to safety.”

Tony filtered back into consciousness at the sound of Jarvis’ voice, and he felt a surge of relief, comfort at hearing his AI’s voice. Then he felt himself being lifted into a sitting position, with extreme carefulness, and he opened his eyes just enough to see a strange red, bio-android face looking down at him, the features etched with concern. That wasn’t Jarvis…?

_Vision_ , something in his nearly shut-down brain supplied. _Siberia. Rescue._

“Don’t,” Tony tried to say firmly, but it came out in a broken whisper. “Leave me…”

Vision’s face contorted in pain for a moment, but Tony’s eyes were fluttering shut again. “I can’t do that, sir. We… the world still needs you.”

Tony felt numb, a little floaty, but he almost mustered up the energy to snort. After a minute, he suddenly remembered—

“Rhodey.” He managed to say around stiff lips, hoping Vision would understand what he didn’t have the power to ask. His brain was… it wasn’t _working_ , trying to think was like trying to pull caramel off molars. 

“He is recovering from surgery and time in the Cradle, he is resting as comfortably as he can be. He expressed great worry for your wellbeing when I received the alert from Friday.”

Tony huffed out a short breath, but didn’t attempt to say anything else. He thought about saying something about his will, that Pepper would know where to find the witnessed and notarized original, but he couldn’t bring himself to try to say her name.

“I pay for all of it.” He blurted out as he opened his eyes, surprising himself. “Rhodey’s… all of it. I pay. The specialists.” Helen Cho was at the Compound, she’d been there when Rhodey had been brought in, but had immediately called in a couple different specialists from around the world that weren’t exactly covered by the “Stark-Funded Avengers Insurance Plan”. Neither would whatever physical therapists he required afterward.

“Sir, please don’t try to talk. Your core temperature is dangerously low, and the struggle of attempting to talk is not helping the frostbite on your face.”

Tony let his eyes close again, unconcerned about his state of health right now. In fact, he was kind of happy about it. He didn’t hurt anymore, just felt numb. His chest didn’t even ache, and it had been seven years of living with that every day, since Afghanistan. The lack of pain and pressure was a _relief_. The stupid backup power in the suit had kicked on in short intervals during the first hour after he told Friday to shut down, warming him up until the shivering kicked in again and made things excruciating, but it had finally died out. All his expectations, even hopes, of being dead before anyone found him had been disappointed.

Vision was talking, but not at him, and Tony just let the words flow past him instead of catching them and making sense of them. He was sure the guy was trying to get them to safety, or whatever, but Tony was perfectly content to just float. He was content to let himself drift on this numbness, slipping slowly away into a blackness that didn’t hold nightmares…

He wanted it.

\---------------------

It was with a sense of visceral panic that Vision contacted the only person he could think of, the only person left that would still be wholly on Mr. Stark’s side that wasn’t in the hospital.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Ms. Potts?”

Her voice was full of relief. “Vision, did you find him?” Ms. Potts had been contacted the moment Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes had landed at the compound earlier, Colonel Rhodes being rushed to the medical wing for immediate assessment. Vision had taken the liberty of alerting her when he had received the strange alert from Friday, a location and nothing more. He was fully aware of the separation that Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts were in the midst of, but something had told him to keep her apprised of the situation.

“I have, but… I must ask your forgiveness instead, Ms. Potts, I am afraid I do not know what to do. There has been…” _An attack_ , “An incident.”

Her voice, business-like before, now took a turn into the kind of dead calm that Vision immediately associated with heart-constricting worry. “Is he alive.”

“Yes.”

The shudder was nearly inaudible, but it carried many volumes. “What happened?”

“I am with Mr. Stark right now, ma’am. We are in Siberia, and while he is still alive, he is quickly approaching critical condition. I… do not know what to do. I have no way to transport him home without calling a jet, I did not travel here with one, but the time it would take to get here… I could carry him somewhere, but I know not where. I’m am so sorry, ma’am, but I… do not know what to do.”

There was the sound of tapping on a computer keyboard. “I need your exact location. Who is left on our side?”

With a surge of relief, Vision answered every curt question the woman fired at him, reassuring her as to Colonel Rhodes’ stable condition as of the moment he left the compound earlier, taking vital information on Mr. Stark, the current weather conditions.

“You have to get him warm, immediately. That’s the most important thing right now. Are you able to do that?”

Vision looked around, knowing it was useless. There was nothing in the immediate vicinity to help. He wracked his brain, and finally settled on an idea.

“I will… try.”

“You need to hurry. His body isn’t in the best condition even when he’s not suffering from the injuries you’re talking about, and his lungs and chest never did reach their full strength after… everything. I am having someone come to you. It’s too dangerous for you to move him very far when he’s in that condition, especially with it as cold as it is there, and the temperature is going to keep dropping once the sun sets. Is there a more protected area within the compound you’re in?”

Vision heard her, processed what she was saying, but didn’t reply yet. He was attempting something.

The beam of yellow energy coming from the gem affixed to his head was directed at the Captain Roger’s abandoned shield lying on the freezing concrete nearby. Vision was watching, measuring data, and after half a minute, he had found the proper energy transfer to heat the vibranium.

“I will scout the area in a moment, ma’am. I am trying to find a way to warm Mr. Stark. His core temperature is dangerously low.”

There was an almost silent intake of breath on the line, but nothing else.

After a minute, the concave metal had reached a fairly high temperature, and Vision moved it carefully, setting it directly over the suit’s chest. The metal would cool quickly, and Vision was faced with needing to find an area more protected from the elements, and needing to keep Mr. Stark warm as the sky slowly darkened.

He did the latter first. Using the severely damaged helmet of the Iron Man suit, Vision adjusted the beam of energy from the crystal to heat the metal, then hesitantly used the same method directly on the suit, keeping well clear of Mr. Stark’s exposed head.

It took time, precious minutes that melted away as the ambient temperature grew colder with the fading of daylight, but finally the suit of metal was heated up enough that Vision felt able to search the area.

Ms. Potts had stayed on the line, the sounds of another conversation taking place with ex-Director Fury (Vision filed that interesting information away for later), continual tapping on a keyboard, occasional murmured requests for an update. Vision moved swiftly through the abandoned military experimentation compound, searching for an appropriate place to wait, finally finding a series of small, cell-like rooms that seemed equipped for human habitation.

Moving Mr. Stark made Vision feel an anxiety he’d never known before. His maker’s heartbeat was erratic, his core temperature no longer falling, but not rising either, and another bio scan showed that the internal injuries were not improving. No surprises there.

He went as quickly and as carefully as he could, trying to move Mr. Stark as little as possible, so as not to make anything worse. The cot he finally settled the man on creaked with age and disuse, a cloud of dust falling to the floor from the old canvas.

“Ms. Potts.” Vision waited a moment for her to reply, then continued, “I have taken Mr. Stark inside the facility. I can provide information on how to locate us when the time comes.” He set to work trying to remove the suit from Mr. Stark’s body, but even though he had often seen the way the complicated pieces fit together, trying to do the reverse was quite difficult.

“I have help on the way. But it will be a few hours before they’ll get there, they’re still loading everything. Maria Hill will pick up Happy Hogan in Germany, she is bringing medical personnel, and Helen Cho will follow behind once they get the Cradle retrofitted to an arc reactor for mobile use. Are you familiar with them?”

“I am familiar with former Agent Hill and Dr. Cho, yes. I have not met Mr. Hogan personally, but I am aware of his relationship to Mr. Stark.”

“How is he doing?”

“I am attempting to remove the suit, but it is too badly damaged, and too complicated a machine for me to remove myself. I fear doing Mr. Stark bodily harm if I attempt any other method.”

There was a brief, quick breath of air. “Do what you can. But don’t hurt him.”

“I swear to you, Ms. Potts, I would never harm Tony Stark.”

Her voice was soft, and something in it ached. “I believe you.”

\-------------------

It was three hours before Vision heard the low rumbling that signaled a large aircraft coming in for a landing above him. Three of the worst hours of his admittedly short life.

Ms. Potts had been on the line with him the entire time, and Vision was acutely grateful that the earpiece devices that the Avengers used to communicate with one another and others had such a long battery life. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, they were Stark tech. Everything that came from Tony Stark’s hands was built to a nearly unattainable standard of excellence.

“Ms. Potts?” They had been silent for a long time, only faint breathing coming through the line. “I believe they are here.”

“Oh, thank God,” Came the whispered reply.

Mr. Stark was still alive. But certainly not well. Vision had persistently kept the irremovable metal suit warm, using the specific low-energy beam to keep the metal at slightly higher than normal body temperature. He was feeling an exhaustion he was not familiar with as a result, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the long flight to get here, the use of the beam, or from the unfamiliar worry that felt like it clung to him as a second skin.

As Mr. Stark’s body temperature slowly rose, violent shivering had taken over, and though Vision was terrified it would cause his injuries to worsen, the android didn’t dare let the temperature drop again. He had searched through the cells nearby, retrieving a few articles of clothing and a blanket, all in the same state as the cot Mr. Stark lay prone upon. He had tucked them around his maker’s head, trying to stabilize and support it, shifting the stiff, dusty fabric to cover as much of Mr. Stark’s face as he could without inhibiting his breathing.

The shivering continued, although less severe than before, as the hours passed. The bleeding continued, but there was nothing Vision could do about that. He watched Mr. Stark’s face grow flush with increasing warmth, then go pale again with blood loss. He hoped against all reason that the man would not wake, would remain unconscious, so as not to feel the incredible pain that would surely follow a return to consciousness.

The man had suffered enough. And so much more.

Having followed Visions directions (the android had gone the route himself three separate times to ensure it was the fastest, safest way), footsteps approached the closed door, and a knock preceded entrance.

“Boss?” A large man with dark hair and a receding hairline entered the room first, shooting Vision a brief glance before approaching the cot and shifting aside the fabric to cup Mr. Stark’s face with both hands. “Boss, you hear me? We’re here, we’re getting you home.”

There was no response from the prone body, and the man that Vision assume was Mr. Hogan was gently moved aside by Ms. Hill. “Let them work, Happy.”

Three medical and four armed personnel had filed into the room. The medical personnel immediately clustered around the cot, taking vitals and exchanging medical jargon, and the four armed guards stationed themselves two inside the room and two out, standing at rest with their guns held in a relaxed position in their hands.

Vision kept well clear of the work, and adjusted the settings on his earpiece to allow Ms. Potts to hear everything going on. Her breathing was as quiet as before, but it had quickened.

“We’re going to need to get him out of the suit. He’s… he’s lost too much blood, we have to fix that first.” One of the medical personnel, a woman, was saying, “Mr. Hogan—”

“The equipment is on the jet, we’ll meet Dr. Cho at the facility in Russia. Are we ready to move him?” Mr. Hogan’s voice was professional, but so tight it was almost painful to hear. “Stretcher?”

The woman nodded, and he went back into the hall, maneuvering a compact, collapsible stretcher into the overcrowded cell.

“Okay, let’s get him up. Mr. Hogan, can you help?”

It took effort, lifting the suit with Mr. Stark inside it, but they managed to move him without too much jostling around. The near-run in the dark to the waiting quinjet passed in a blur, and as soon as they were all aboard, Vision assisted Mr. Hogan, using laser cutters to take the Iron Man suit apart as quickly as possible while they took off.

As soon as they penetrated the torso pieces of the armor, blood started dripping to the floor, prompting them to work faster. They were fighting the clock, and as the quinjet reached the highest altitude it was capable of, they were rocketing away.

\-------------------------

Waking up on the quinjet who knew how much later was almost as bad as it had been waking up in that godforsaken Afghan cave and finding a car battery attached to the monstrosity in his chest.

Damn it, it _hurt_. Everything _hurt_ , and when Tony tried to sit up, the gasp of pain let him know that cracked ribs and who knew what else was going to be his constant companions for the next four to six weeks.

Why couldn’t Vision have just left him to die?

“Mr. Stark, we need to you stay completely still. You’ve suffered… a lot of injuries, and until we can get you into the Cradle, we need you to stay still.”

There was a voice he didn’t recognize. He looked up, suddenly aware that he was out of his suit (how did that happen?), and there was a medic of some sort standing above him.

“What—” His voice came out dry and hoarse, and he had to clear his throat to try again. “What’s up?”

“We’re on our way to a hospital in Russia, Mr. Stark. You are too severely wounded to get you back to the states, and we will meet Dr. Cho there. You need emergency surgery, and time in the Cradle. How much pain are you experiencing?”

Oh, a smidge less than excruciating, no biggie. Tony didn’t answer the medic, who he now recognized as one of Helen Cho’s doctors, but looked around the quinjet. Vision. Hill. Guards. Doctors. …No way. 

“ _Happy_?” 

His friend approached, taking Tony’s hand and squeezing almost to the point of pain. “Hey, boss. Scared us, there.”

“What the _hell_ are you doing on a quinjet in—Russia, apparently.” He coughed, and it hurt like a sonofabitch, feeling wet and coppery in his mouth. “Where’s Peter?”

“He’s fine, he’s vlogging about all this crap that he can’t ever tell anyone about. I left babysitters, he’s fine, I promise.” Happy’s voice was sarcastic, if a little rough.

“Sir, if I may,” Vision removed his earpiece and approached, pausing for a moment as if to ask permission before inserting it into Tony’s ear.

“Tony?”

It was sweet torture to hear that voice. “Pep?” He managed hoarsely.

“You’re gonna be okay, alright? I’m on a jet right now, I’ll be there when you get out of surgery, okay?”

“I’m so sorry.”

He could hear her surprise. “For _what_?”

“Everything. The whole… all of it. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and when it did… I should’ve kept my promise.”

“What promise?”

“Any promise I ever made. Especially the one a few weeks ago.”

“Tony…” Her voice ached. “You got beaten half to death and _left there to die_. Worrying about you holding up the terms of this break we’re taking is literally the last thing on my mind.”

“I’m sorry, Pep.”

He heard a sound like a smothered sob, then nearly jumped when she snapped in his ear, “Anthony Edward Stark, if you are telling me goodbye—” Pepper’s voice broke like glass.

“No. I think I missed my shot there. Should have died faster.”

“No, no, _Tony_.” She was definitely crying now. All he ever did anymore was make her cry…

“Mr. Stark, I think it would be best if we sedated you for the remainder of the trip.” One of the medics said, leaning over him with a gentle arm on his shoulder. (Oh, hey, shoulder doesn’t hurt, cool.)

“Pep, I’ve gotta go, they’re gonna put me under. Happy, can you—”

The man came back over and carefully removed the earpiece, holding it up to his own ear. “Hey, Pe— I—yeah—okay, alright, geez, hold on a second.” He put the earpiece back next to Tony’s ear.

“Tony?!”

“I’m here honey, what’s—”

“I love you.”

Tony’s eyes closed, and his heart clenched. 

“And if you’re not alive when I get there, so help me—”

“I’ll be here. I love you, Pepper.” He nodded at Happy, his eyes burning as his friend took the earpiece back. He fixed Happy with as determined a glare as he could manage. “Soon as we land, you get back to Peter. That kid is not to be left alone until he is home safe.”

“Okay boss. Soon as Pepper’s got you, I’m gone.”

Tony nodded his thanks, then he looked at the doctor. “Go for it.”

She nodded once, a syringe already in her hand, and injected the fluid into the IV that ran into his arm.

He floated away again, a different drifting now than before in the cold, and this time when he closed his eyes… he wasn’t hoping that he never opened them again.

\-----------------------

He was still fuzzy when Pepper’s face appeared above him, obscuring the fluorescent lights overhead.

“Hey,” He rasped, trying to hold his hand up.

“You’re headed into surgery right now, okay? And Helen is prepping the Cradle, you’ll go in the second they close you up. I’ll be right there, just outside the room. We’re talking after, okay? Promise?”

Tony nodded, his head feeling like it weighed a ton. “Yeah. Promise.”

“I’m holding you to that.” She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his dry lips. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Pepper held his hand as his head started to spin again, and her face, tear-streaked and so beautiful, was the last thing he saw until he woke up hours later in the recovery room. Then it was the first thing he saw, and her blue eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, but the tears seemed to have dried up for the moment.

He was so tired of making her cry…

\---------------------

It was a full day before Tony was able to leave the hospital in Russia, even with the Cradle speeding his recovery along at superhuman rates. While he was there, Tony worked on upgrades for the Spider-Man suit, especially a heater because he still couldn’t get warm and he never wanted that kid to be as cold as he still felt (also a parachute, but he wasn’t letting his brain go to the reasoning behind that yet, one truckload of guilt at a time, thanks). 

He also did some digging, needing to understand, and what he found both confused him and cleared things up in equal measures.

Pepper didn’t let Tony walk out of the hospital when he was finally discharged, of course (she hadn’t let him out of her sight _at all_ since she’d gotten to the hospital, and that had been a little awkward once or twice), since he was being held together mostly by synthetic tissue, but she did let him at least sit upright in the plane on the way home. She even let him tinker with the Spider-Man suit too while Happy did his best to keep Peter Parker entertained, and she watched Tony with a closeness and desperation they were both all too familiar with.

It only took a little bit of arguing for Pepper to agree to let Tony personally take Peter home when they landed in New York, as long as Happy was there the entire time. Tony wanted to make sure Peter got home safe, and it worked out great that the kid was doing a vlog and Tony could make sure the kid had a good alibi. He was even still drugged up enough that the wincing was kept down to a minimum, although leaning over to open the door for the kid had been a _huge mistake_ and his entire torso started aching when he sat back against the seat. Props to him for keeping the pain off his face and buried behind his “smile for the camera” mask.

His first stop back at the Avengers compound was Rhodey’s room in the medical ward. His best friend looked up to see Tony standing in the doorway, and the man looked equal parts relieved and stricken.

“Tony. I heard about… about what happened with Cap.” Rhodey’s dark eyes were full of sorrow. “I’m so sorry, man.”

Tony shook his head as he walked over and carefully sat down in the chair next to the bed (pain meds were wearing off, Pepper had the pills), not willing to poke that non-physical wound quite yet as he changed the subject. “Thanks. How are you holding up?”

Rhodey let it slide, for the moment, and gave him the breakdown and likely future outcomes of his recovery. Before he was done, Tony was mentally constructing braces to implement during the physical therapy part of Rhodey’s recovery. His friend would walk again if it was the last thing he ever did.

“Your turn.”

Tony’s eyes flicked up, his thoughts coming out of schematics for braces and back to Rhodey. “What?”

“You left while I was still in surgery, Tony. No way would you have done that, and been gone as long as you were, without some damn good reasons. I got the reader’s digest version from Vision and Pepper, telling me that you nearly died because of _Steve_ , and now you need to fill in the blanks because I can’t put that together in my head. What happened, Tony? And why can’t you sit up straight?”

Tony was about to blow it off, make it seem like no big deal, like he always did, handle the problem on his own… but that hadn’t really been working for him lately, had it? That was precisely what had driven Pepper to suggest they take a break a few weeks ago, step back to gain some perspective, figure out what they were doing wrong so they could fix it.

So he told Rhodey everything.

The horror, anger, and incredulity on the man’s face was almost as bad to watch as it was to say the words, so Tony studied his shoes instead.

“Tony… you… you watched—”

“Trying not to dwell.”

“And Steve _knew_?”

Tony let his head fall into his hands, ignoring the way his surgery sites and ribs were starting to scream in pain again, despite all the work he’d gotten in the Cradle. “Yeah.”

“That son of a _bitch_.” Rhodey’s voice was furious.

Tony glanced over, a humorless smile on his face. “Don’t get all excited. Helen will kick me out with no remorse.”

Rhodey shook his head, looking stunned and… utterly betrayed on Tony’s behalf. “And this whole time, he was protecting Barnes.”

Tony’s gaze shifted away, and he was quiet for a moment before finally… “Truth is… Barnes didn’t kill my parents.”

Rhodey’s head snapped in his direction, his eyes wide. “What?”

“He was…” Tony swallowed hard. “He was the bullet. But he wasn’t the gun. And he wasn’t the one that pulled the trigger. I know that. I’ve… done some digging, put some stuff together while I was sitting on my ass in Russia. It wasn’t Barnes, it was the Winter Soldier. Completely different. The stuff HYDRA did to him? It makes me absolutely sick, Rhodey. It was like what Loki did to Barton, just… worse. I never thought something like that could be worse.”

Tony scrubbed his hands over his face and leaned back in his chair, wincing. “I just… I couldn’t see it then. All I saw was my mom—” His voice broke and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “All I saw was my mom suffering. And I wanted to make him suffer too.”

Rhodey was shaking his head, looking at Tony like he was unreal. “Every time I think I’ve got you figured out, man, you go and do something like this.”

Tony’s eyebrows furrowed. “Like what?”

Rhodey’s eyes were filled with something like sympathy. “Forgive the man who murdered your mom.”

Tony took a deep breath, letting it out slowly because _ouch_ , ribs, damn it. “Don’t see how I can’t. It wasn’t him. All that stuff he did, all those years, it wasn’t him. His body, but not his mind, and not his choice. He doesn’t deserve to pay for that.”

\---------------------------

It was a solid ten days before Tony spent more than ten minutes alone. The rest of the time, he was either shadowed by Happy, accompanied by Pepper, or annoying Rhodey. It was… well, it was driving him out of his mind, but it was also a really, really good thing.

Because the first night Pepper couldn’t get out of her obligations just to babysit her… boyfriend(?) (Tony wasn’t sure what they were right now, neither of them had been able to jump that particular conversation hurdle)… Tony made the idiot mistake of turning on the news.

It took maybe thirty seconds of a news report eviscerating the Avengers and everything to do with them to completely demolish any kind of fragile mental and emotional healing that he’d managed to scrape together so far (therapy, wheeee). And another minute and a half before he was having the first panic attack he’d had in months.

Which felt _super awesome_ on his still battered and bruised body, _thank you very much_.

Two minutes, and it was like he was flat on his back on frozen cement in Siberia. Fantastic.

Tony had zero expectations that sleeping would be a thing that would actually happen, but he’d promised Pepper he’d actually go to bed, a real bed with sheets and everything, and so help him he was _never_ going to break a promise to her again.

To his surprise, the minute his head hit he pillow, he started to feel sleepy. But then, it might have been the painkillers he was still popping at regular intervals that helped that along. For whatever reason, he started to drift off, and with a quick text to Pepper to let him know he was being a good boy and going to sleep, he let himself go.

\--------------------------

Tony woke up a few hours later, his throat constricting around bile and a scream as he shot upright, drenched with sweat, eyes wide and wild with terror.

A silver hand that kept turning into flesh, trying to dig the arc reactor out of him. Stane’s face with a demonic smile clashing with Steve’s when he raised the shield over his head to slam it into Tony’s chest. The sound of his mom pleading from somewhere Tony couldn’t find.

Tony leaned over and threw up on the floor, shaking so bad he nearly lost his grip on the sheets and fell off the bed.

The images from his nightmare seemed burned into his eyes, and every time he blinked, that was all he could see. A slideshow of horror playing on the backs of his eyelids.

Using an emergency override code, Tony silenced the alert that Friday was about to send to Rhodey and Pepper, and went to his lab. He had to _do something_ , or he was going to fall apart in a way that he wouldn’t be able to come back from.

He tinkered with Rhodey’s braces, the third model he’d had machined, making tweaks to them despite the nonstop shaking in his hands. When nearly half an hour passed and he could still feel himself on the brink of another panic attack, he broke out the booze.

He’d been trying, really hard, to go easy. He knew he’d been dirty dancing with alcoholism for most of his life, but in the past several years he’d been trying so hard to back off that ledge and be better.

Tonight, he threw himself off that ledge and welcomed the numbing burn like an old, dear friend.

He hammered back _bottles_ of alcohol, in quick succession, and he knew he was on the brink of fatal alcohol poisoning when suddenly the phone he’d gotten in the mail from Steve the day before was in one hand, a shaking glass of scotch in the other.

He wanted to make the call. He wanted Steve to answer, wanted to _scream_ at him, wanted nothing more than to just disappear so everything would _just stop hurting_. He was so tired of carrying it all, he couldn’t do it anymore.

The scotch in the glass was sloshing around, spilling over the rim, and with a primal scream of rage and pain and fear, Tony hurled the glass against the opposite wall, not even hearing it shatter over the sound ripping from his throat.

He collapsed on the hard floor, falling in a heap, tears stinging in his eyes as ugly, hurting sobs boiled up out of his heaving chest. He couldn’t really… feel anymore, he’d had way too much to drink for that, but the way he struggled to pull his knees up to his chest told him that the painkillers had worn off and he was probably sore as hell under the booze fog.

Resting his elbows on his knees, Tony dropped his head down onto his arms and just let the shakes happen. Shudders that shook out from the center of his chest, renewed trembling in his hands, more harsh breaths sawing out of his mouth as the tears refused to stop.

That whole falling apart thing he’d been avoiding earlier… hadn’t really worked all that well.

A quiet whir of wheels and the whine of servos brought Tony’s head up for a moment, and through blurry eyes he could see Dummy angling the metal arm around, positioning the camera to look at him. With slow, careful movements, the bot reached out and very gently petted his claw through Tony’s slightly grimy hair.

Hiding his wet face in the crook of his arm, Tony reached up with his other hand and grabbed onto Dummy’s claw, holding onto the machine for dear life. The bot made a chirping sort of sound, and tugged a little against Tony’s hold, then apparently gave up his attempt to pet Tony’s hair and settled for nudging his claw carefully back and forth against his maker’s head.

It was… almost like the bot was trying to rock him? The sensation felt like that, anyway, the bot’s gentle movements swaying Tony’s body just a little bit. It took a while, quite a while, but eventually Tony’s eyes stopped leaking and burning and his nose stopped running and he wasn’t shaking uncontrollably anymore. Dummy stayed with him the whole time, moving the claw up to resume petting gingerly at his hair when Tony finally loosened his grip on the metal and let go. It made Tony think of the times Pepper played with his hair, her perfectly manicured nails scratching lightly at his scalp and ruining any kind of style he tried to keep in the slowly graying strands.

“Boss, may I cancel the emergency override protocol and let Miss Potts know where you are? She just arrived home.”

Tony sighed, and reached up to grab onto Dummy’s claw again. This wasn’t gonna be pretty. Pepper was going to cry again.

“Yeah. Let her know I’m down here. Let her know what she’s walking into.”

\----------------------

Tony was right, Pepper did cry. She found him, still on the floor and too stiff and dizzy to stand up by himself or even with Dummy’s help, so she just kneeled down next to him and pulled him into her arms. Tony was drained, totally done with the crying thing, but his eyes pricked with tears anyway. He only just managed to blink them back, reasoning that it was Pepper’s turn now.

“I wish I hadn’t gone.” Pepper whispered, cupping his face in her hands and searching his eyes. “I should have told Happy to stay with you. I knew this would happen.”

“Guess it was good to get it out of the way, then.” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

She shushed him and tugged him back into a tight embrace, giving Dummy a pat as she did so. The bot fondly ran his claw through Pepper’s strawberry blonde ponytail, then rolled away and back to his charging station, apparently satisfied that Tony was taken care of now.

With Pepper’s help, Tony lurched up off the floor with all the grace of a baby learning to walk, and his nose wrinkled when he caught a whiff of his own atrocious booze breath and fear sweat. “Think you can prop me up in the shower long enough to rinse off?”

Pepper smiled a little, even as her eyes still glittered. “I can manage that. Then we’re going to bed.”

“Think it’s been long enough that I can take more painkillers?” His chest and ribs were killing him again, really the only injuries left that were still bothering him enough to need the good meds. His arm kept doing… weird things, alternating between going numb and aching, but not the kind of things that the meds helped with.

“Friday?” Pepper inquired as they slowly made their way to the elevator.

“Probably not yet, boss. Your blood alcohol level will still be too high. Ibuprofen or acetaminophen would be fine though.”

“Probably best to get me off the narcs anyway,” Tony groaned, leaning back against the elevator wall and shaking out his left arm. It was numb for the moment, but he was determined not to think about that too closely.

\---------------------

The days continued passing. Tony and Rhodey kept healing, the both of them and Pepper all keeping an eye on each other while Happy and Vision kept tabs as well, and Friday watched them all. Therapy was a thing that was still a thing (wheeee), but even though he kind of hated it, Tony knew it was helping.

The nightmares still haunted him, two in particular. Stane taking the arc reactor out… and Steve slamming his shield into it (the theme of betrayal did not escape him). On those nights, Tony couldn’t sleep until it was well past daylight again, but Rhodey and Pepper took turns staying up with him. Keeping him company while he tinkered in the lab, watching movies, one night Tony even coaxed Rhodey into playing a slow and easy game of basketball (Tony could really only use his right arm effectively, and he had Rhodey help him tie his shoelaces together to make the game fair as they both shuffled slowly along the court), tweaking the settings on the braces afterwards to make them better.

He wasn’t drinking, though. That was… a lot better than most of his life.

He read all the texts and listened to all the voicemails from Peter Parker, and those got some of the most genuine laughs and smiles Tony’d had in… a long damn time. The thought of needing the kid for another mission anytime soon, though, that kind of made him want to throw up. He was pretty sure he could happily go the rest of his life without being in peril again.

Things were getting… better. In a really slow, painful way, ways that involved a lot of physical therapy and talking and expressing feelings and the kinds of things that Tony had been actively avoiding for most of his life. But it was… it was actually better. Especially with Pepper. That woman had been the light of his life since she’d walked into it over fifteen years ago, and now he was finally figuring out how to shine that light back on her, the way she deserved. In ways that hopefully didn’t make her cry.

The compound was… really empty, sometimes, despite the number of people that still lived and worked there. The communal spaces fairly echoed on nights that Tony couldn’t sleep and found himself just standing silently, looking over the clean but clearly abandoned areas where the team used to gather and just be friends. It always ached, in a different way from the ever-constant pain that the arc reactor had caused and still lingered now. Sharper, deeper, harder to push to the back of his mind. It was easy to get lost in his own thoughts, wondering where they were, how they were, if they were all okay. He had theories, but didn’t pursue any of them. It had been made… very clear that how things used to be was not something any of them could get back.

On those nights, when Tony stood sad and silent in the dark, he was pretty sure Friday tattled to Pepper and Rhodey, and even Happy or Vision sometimes, because he never stood there alone for long. Sometimes they stood with him, Rhodey with a hand on his shoulder, Pepper with her hand in his, Happy standing a little ways back, Vision with his shoulder just brushing Tony’s. Other times they led him away, coaxing or just quietly steering him, judging by the look in his eyes what he needed. It was both more and less than Tony’d had before in those communal rooms, and hurt more and less in equal measures.

But still… it got better. Slowly, but surely, with each day that passed… it got better.


End file.
